The NSW Government approved exploration for coal seam gas 500m from the World Heritage Wollemi National Park at Putty. The Australian 'gas rush' for export needs to be reconsidered taking into account the impacts on the environment, people’s health, livelihoods and plans for the future.

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Will you help us to save your EDO?

After nearly 30 years of helping the people of NSW to
protect their environment and heritage under the law, EDO NSW faces an
unprecedented threat to its survival and we need your help to ensure we can
continue to assist you in public interest environmental matters. Please read on
to better understand the problem and what you can do to help.

POLITICAL PRESSURE

In recent days, the NSW Energy Minister attacked EDO NSW’s
involvement in last weekend’s community conference in Gloucester. The
conference provided an opportunity for community members to obtain information
on developments across NSW and was attended by farmers, elected representatives
and the broader community. This latest comment follows months of repeated
attacks in The Australian newspaper, the National Civic Council and in NSW
Parliament, mainly by Shooters and Fishers Party MPs. These are unjustified
attacks on our work as lawyers for the environment.Click here to see our letter of October 19th
2012 to NSW Government Ministers and MPs responding to these attacks.

FUNDING CRISIS

The NSW Government is now being urged to stop EDO NSW
funding under a review of legal assistance services. At the same time, the
major source of our annual funding - which comes from the Public Purpose Fund
of the Law Society of NSW (PPF) - has been cut. We have been receiving PPF
funding since 1996, normally under three-year grant agreements, and our work
has been actively supported by the Trustees. The first cut was to 6 months (July-December
2012); and as of this month has been reduced to only 3 months (January-March
2013), with the dollar value cut by a quarter.As a result, both our PPF funding, and NSW Government funding, must now
be considered at risk.

THE PROBLEM

This damaging uncertainty makes it extremely difficult, if
not impossible, to maintain a strong, independent EDO, that can offer ongoing
help to clients, and serve the wider community, while operating free of the
politics of the day. If our PPF funding is not restored and public funding
affirmed then EDO NSW as you know it will be decimated if not destroyed in the
New Year. This is occurring at the same time as the Government is pursuing its
signature reform of the planning laws, with the avowed intention of restoring community
participation and public confidence after the dark days of fast-tracking major
projects under Part 3A.

THE SOLUTION

The uncertainty can be solved by the NSW Government making
clear its strong and unambiguous support for ongoing PPF and public funding of
EDO NSW, ideally with cross-party agreement in the Parliament. In this way,
community participation and public confidence in the planning and environment
system can be maintained.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

We need our many supporters to speak up long and loud.
Please do any or all of the following:

•Speak to
your local media and look for opportunities to support us such as calling in to
radio talkback

•Share
this with anyone you think might care about EDO NSW.

•We also
welcome your donations to EDO NSW

OUR FUTURE

If the current situation goes unchanged, it means we will
have to lay off most of our valuable, highly professional and tireless staff
early in the New Year, and begin dramatically scaling back or shutting down our
popular key community services including:

•Free legal
advice telephone line – we took nearly 1500 calls last year

•Community
workshops – 95 across NSW in the past three years, with about 95% in rural and
regional areas

•Rural and
regional work – a major focus for the past 10 years, with a regional office in
Lismore, and support to communities on key issues like native vegetation, water
plans, coal seam gas, mining, private conservation and local planning

•Indigenous
program – unique support to the Aboriginal community on culture and heritage

•Education
and publishing – major guides/handbooks, and 40 much-used Fact Sheets, and a
major new guide on mining set to be published

•Policy
and law reform – including extensive input to the current major reform of the
NSW planning laws, with 2400 hits on our online guide to the Green Paper during
the submission period

•Court
cases and mediation – ensuring high quality cases get heard and those with poor
prospects are filtered out, which has led to many important environment cases
on behalf of communities from the cities to the bush

If NSW loses its EDO, the community’s only source of
accessible, independent, expert, public interest legal advice on planning and
environment matters since 1985 will disappear.

If that alarms you, then please take a stand. Help us to
save your EDO.